Myth and Miracle
Many hopes are associated with green tea in terms of its antioxidant effect. They are based on the comparatively high number of polyphenols, due to the different drying process compared to black tea.
The high content of antioxidants made green tea appear as a hope in the prevention of certain types of cancer, and everyone knows friends or acquaintances who from one day to the next suddenly ordered only green tea.
Major authorities such as the English medical publication Lancet and the American Food and Drug Association (FDA), after evaluating all currently available scientific studies, conclude that there is insufficient evidence to support the cancer-preventive effects of green tea.
Does this dispel the myth of green tea, which was associated with the hope of doing something good for the body?
YES AND NO
The great hope of cancer prevention through drinking green tea has so far proven to be a myth based on the available scientific studies.
Nevertheless, green tea can have a very positive effect on the soul and spirit. Not, however, with the occasional hastily drunk cup of green tea, hoping to balance out other unhealthy life factors a bit with it, but in the form it has been celebrated in Japan for centuries.
HARMONY, RESPECT, PURITY AND PEACE OF MIND FORM THE ESSENCE OF TEA DRINKING
The inner experience of drinking tea requires a clear space, reduced to the minimum, to give the mind the opportunity for inner contemplation and rest. Before entering a tea room, hands and face are traditionally washed in Japan. This symbolically removes the everyday life.
Also, cleaning the instruments needed for the tea ceremony is not only from the point of view of cleanliness, but serves the inner letting go, the concentration on the here and now.
Life is almost always overflowing, crowded with deadlines, tasks and objects. The retreat, even if only for minutes in a room reduced to a minimum, perhaps decorated only with a single flower or branch, are the best conditions to experience the healing effects of tea.
The slow and deliberate infusion of the tea is comparable to a frothing, swirling water coming to rest. Rest and reduction are the conditions to recover mind and body by enjoying a cup of tea and thus return to everyday life refreshed and changed.
